REVIEW - OPERATION OUCH! BRAINS, BOGIES AND YOU | MANCHESTER MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & INDUSTRY | 22/03 /2025

Rating: 5
Author: Sarah Monaghan

Sarah Monaghan
Jun 1
5 min read

Updated: 6 days ago

BBC's Operation Ouch! poster with "Brains, Bogies and You" exhibition title. Features doctors smiling, purple and yellow background.

Purple stars on a black background with text "ALL ABOUT THEATRE" in bold white letters, exuding a theatrical and vibrant mood.

👋 Let’s Get Gross (and Brilliant)!

Before visiting, we hadn’t watched a single episode of Operation Ouch!—but the exhibition’s title alone was enough to grab our attention. Brains? Bogies? Yes please. We visited as a family with Alice (7) and Leo (6), curious to see what all the fuss was about.

Housed at the always-brilliant Science and Industry Museum, Operation Ouch! Brains, Bogies and You is a high-energy, science-meets-silliness exhibition all about how we experience the world through our senses. Whether you’re a seasoned science buff or a complete newbie, it’s a colourful, educational and joyfully gross-out journey that welcomes everyone.

Man, woman, and child enter a room through a door marked with caution signs. Background features blue light and brick walls.

🎬 Shrink Down and Dive Inside the Human Body!

The first section of the exhibition is The Lab, where there are illustrations of science equipment on the walls and a giant screen. Things kick off with a short, silly video featuring three enthusiastic doctors—Dr Chris, Dr Xand, and Dr Ronx—who explain that you’ll be shrunk down and sent through Dr Chris’s ear canal to explore the brain from the inside out.

Once the video finishes, you walk through a giant ear-shaped tunnel complete with yellow earwax drips and spiky black hairs.

This fun sci-fi setup gives way to a choose-your-own-adventure-style exhibition, with winding paths, tunnels, and interactive rooms themed around the senses—including sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell and more. The design is clever, playful, and totally immersive, offering just the right mix of facts and fun.

Projection of three smiling people, one holding a magnifying glass. Warm-lit room, a woman appears engaged as she faces the screen.

🧠 What’s Inside? A Tour of Your Senses!

🧠 Brain HQ

This section is pink and themed around the brain. It looks like a control room, with panels, flashing lights and videos playing on the walls. Kids can learn what different parts of the brain control. Alice enjoyed sorting senses into the brain’s lobes like a jigsaw puzzle, while Leo had fun testing his reaction time and using dominoes to demonstrate a chain reaction, like what happens when signals pass between neurons.

You can enter all the other rooms from here and return to Brain HQ whenever you like.

Child in pink interacts with a large brain model in a vibrant science exhibit with noticeable screens and people in background.

👂 Hearing

In the blue room dedicated to sound, the kids banged on a giant eardrum, played sound-guessing games and wore headphones to tune into videos dotted around the room. It was great to see both of them fully immersed and working together. Leo also loved walking up and down the balance beam. A highlight for us all was the skeleton mirror video that mimics your movements—a giggly moment for the whole family.

🤚 Touch

This pink room explores our sense of touch with mystery boxes, tickle tests, and a section showing why hugs can make us feel better. Leo loved feeling all the different textures on the touch wall, while Alice enjoyed guessing hidden objects using only her sense of touch.

👁 Sight

This green room features a giant eyeball you can go inside, along with optical illusions and interactive displays. Alice loved using the light pen to draw on a board, while Leo was fascinated by the illusions. There’s even a photo opp that creates the illusion you’ve been shrunk into a medical box.

A girl in a pink sweater uses a glowing pen to draw on a luminous wall with green and purple circles in a dark room.

👃 Smell & 👅 Taste

This yellow section includes a giant nose with scent pots underneath. There’s a wall of scent dispensers, ranging from sweet to downright disgusting. Alice had fun making Dr Chris react to different smells on screen, while Leo proudly sniffed out the stinkiest one. The taste section is smaller but equally engaging, helping kids understand how taste and smell are linked, with food quizzes, favourite foods to guess, and plenty of cheeky humour.

Child in pink shirt explores colorful containers under a large nose structure on a yellow interactive display.

💛 Kind to the Senses: Mindboosters & Accessibility

What really stood out to us—as parents of two children on the autistic pathway—was the exhibition’s thoughtful design. It’s fully wheelchair and pushchair accessible, with open layouts, bite-sized info and plenty of sensory variety.

There’s a dedicated chill-out zone called Mindboosters with beanbags, fluffy cloud decor and gentle sound effects. There are no screens—just a calming space that explains how everyone experiences the world differently. It’s kind, clear and offers a welcome break for anyone feeling overstimulated.

Leo found the sounds and lights a bit overwhelming at one point, so we took a break here. The beanbags, soft lighting, calming music and fidget games were just what he needed to reset.

Child in a blue shirt interacts with spiral wall targets in a red sensory room with bean bags. A sign reads "Sensory Stress Mates."

Before you enter the exhibition, you’ll also find the Access Hub near the ticket desk, which includes:

Sensory backpacks with fidgets and stim toys
Ear defenders
Sensory maps
Large-print copies of exhibition panels

All of these are available to borrow free of charge.

For families needing a quieter experience, the museum also offers relaxed sessions with softer sound and lighting on these dates:

🗓 Thursday 20 March
🗓 Sunday 11 May
🗓 Sunday 13 July
🗓 Sunday 21 September
🗓 Sunday 16 November

👩‍⚕️ Bogeys, Dress-Up and Doctor Moments

At the end of the exhibition, you can pick up a bogey hat to wear as you’re “sneezed” out of Dr Chris’s nose—complete with giant drops of green snot and thick black nose hairs. You exit into a final lab space where the doctors appear on a big screen to tell you the experiment is over.

Here, kids can dress up in doctor scrubs for a fun photo opp. There’s even a wall graphic of a lab beaker to pose in-front of, so it looks like you’re trapped inside.

Child standing in a futuristic exhibit entrance with neon green lights. Bright, colorful background with hanging shapes, under a brick ceiling.

🌟 Final Diagnosis: Science Has Never Smelled, Sounded or Looked So Fun!

You don’t need to be a fan of Operation Ouch! to fall head-over-heels for this vibrant, bonkers exhibition. With fart buttons, giant eyeballs and more wacky wonders than you can shake a stethoscope at, Brains, Bogies and You is a brilliant way to get children excited about science.

We left feeling informed, entertained—and slightly grossed out in the best possible way.

Behind all the laughs and gooey gags lies some seriously clever science. The exhibition doesn’t shy away from real concepts—like how our brain processes sensory information, what nerves do or how balance works—but it’s all presented in super-accessible, bite-sized ways.

There are headset videos for older kids wanting more detail, mini medical facts dotted throughout, and even historic medical objects like a brain-scanning helmet and Henry VIII’s healing coins. It’s engaging for adults too—I learned just as much as the kids!

⭐ “See it, sniff it, touch it – a sensory science adventure like no other!” ⭐